Kids Ink Turns 25

By Judith Rosen
|

Jun 09, 2011

To mark Kids Ink Children’s Bookstore’s first 25 years, owner Shirley Mullin decided to hold a birthday party for the store. When she opened the children’s specialty bookstore in Indianapolis in May 1986, there were only two children’s book authors in Indiana. Now there’s an active group of writers. “That’s one thing I’m proud of,” Mullin says. “I thought, let’s just focus on Indiana authors with new books and celebrate them with us.”

So Mullin invited five authors who are still at the beginning of their careers—Nathan Clement (Job Site), Peggy Archer (Name That Dog!), Janna Matthies (The Goodbye Cancer Garden), Christine Johnson (Claire de Lune), and Julia Karr (XVI)—to sign books and share the store’s big day.

Although she had plenty of party favors for her young guests, including folding flexible flyers with a little green pouch and keychain flashlights imprinted with the store’s name, Mullin wasn’t expecting to receive so many birthday cards—many hand-drawn—and flowers. Children and parents also stopped by to sing “Happy Birthday” to her throughout the day.

The following week, Mullin celebrated 25 years in a different way, by getting the store a new carpet to replace the one she installed when it first opened.

ADVERTISEMENT

PW KidsCast: A Conversation with Billy SteersBilly Steers, creator of the Tractor Mac picture books, discusses the 2015 relaunch of his series with Macmillan, as well as the brand-new adventures that await the anthropomorphic tractor and his friends.

PW has integrated its print and digital subscriptions, offering exciting new benefits to subscribers, who are now entitled to both the print edition and the digital editions of PW (online or via our app). For instructions on how to set up your accout for digital access, click here. For more information, click here.

The part of the site you are trying to access is now available to subscribers only. Subscribers: to set up your digital subscription with the new system (if you have not done so already), click here. To subscribe, click here.

Thank you for visiting Publishers Weekly. There are 3 possible reasons you were unable to login and get access our premium online pages.

You are NOT a current subscriber to Publishers Weekly magazine. To get immediate access to all of our Premium Digital Content try a monthly subscription for as little as $18.95 per month. You may cancel at any time with no questions asked. Click here for details about Publishers Weekly’s monthly subscription plans.

You are a subscriber but you have not yet set up your account for premium online access.Add your preferred email address and password to your account.

You forgot your password and you need to retrieve it. Click here to access the password we have on file for you.